Hi everyone! Our sweet girl Athena had emergency stomach surgery on Sunday, January 13th after eating the cover of a leather journal I had accidentally left on the table. Fortunately, the leather was dyed with non-toxic materials, so she wasn’t poisoned. Unfortunately, leather swells and congeals when ingested, which is exactly what happened in Athena’s stomach.

We first noticed something was wrong on Saturday when she threw up and became very lethargic, so we rushed her to the emergency vet. An X-ray showed there was a lot of material sitting in her stomach, but it hadn’t yet moved into her intestines—which we later learned was a very good thing. At that point, our options were either a stomach scope or gastro surgery. Both required anesthesia and were far beyond what we could afford. On top of that, if the scope was unsuccessful, she would have needed emergency surgery anyway, as there was a high risk of intestinal blockage that could have caused severe complications or even death.

Because Athena has chewed and passed things before, we made the difficult decision to bring her home and monitor her closely, with plans to return the next morning for a follow-up X-ray.

On Sunday morning, the X-ray showed that the mass had not moved at all. After consulting with a close friend who is a veterinarian, we made the decision to move forward with surgery.

Thankfully, gastro surgery in dogs has a high success rate, and young, otherwise healthy dogs usually recover well within a couple of weeks. Athena is expected to make a full recovery, and we are beyond grateful for that.

After spending a total of 16 hours at the vet over two days, we were left with a bill of $6,321.29—nearly every dollar we had saved over the past couple of years. We are incredibly thankful that we had the ability to pay for the surgery at all, especially knowing the outcome could have been devastating if we hadn’t. We would make the same decision a thousand times over.

That said, this completely drained both of our accounts, and we are now humbly asking if y’all would be willing to help us financially recover from this unexpected emergency. Any support—donations, shares, or kind words—means more to us than we can express.

Thank you so much for reading and for loving Athena alongside us ❤️